This is the Renaissance, it came upon us all at once

[austin_dern]

Ahead of humor blog links, here's a few more pictures from Parc Festyland. Also, I'm not deliberately late; Livejournal went all Livejournal and refused to accept that I was logged in, or that my password was valid.

In the game room at Parc Festyland: Festy the Viking dragon dinosaur (?) plays video games instead of riding the roller coaster just outside. Quiet sarcasm directed at people who're in the game room at Parc Festyland instead of riding the roller coasters just ouside?

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The Steeplechase-style ride at Parc Festyland. The horses are powered, rather than gravity-driven. The path winds through forest and there are statues along the way. Note the knight lurking just behind a bush, for example.

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A pirate-themed water slide that people at Parc Festyland were going down even though it was (a) cold and (b) rainy.

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I choose to believe that ``Local Technique'' is the name of Parc Festyland's official 80s hair metal band.

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And now you know what comes next. Appearing on my humor blog the past week have been:

• How I Overcame The Face In My Room, a glimpse into my teenaged life. This week's major piece.
• Robert Benchley: How To Sell Goods, in which he shares what he's picked up.
• Again On The Turbolifts, a Caption This! from one of the episodes where Troi beat up Worf.
• The ‘Nothing Is Happening In Apartment 3-G’ Update, pointing to my mathematics blog and reminding people that nothing is happening in Apartment 3-G.
• Improved Supervillainy, because I realized one thing supervillains are doing wrong, besides doing wrong.
• Statistics Saturday: How I Evaluate The Truth Of A Thing, which now that I think about it is an idea I could've done more with. I might rehab it.
• Popeye is the King of the Mardi Gras, a great old cartoon featuring a Scenic Railway.
• My Favorite Fonzie, last week's major piece, about an album that I swear exists just exactly as I've described it.

As ever you can add my humor blog to your Friends page, or you can add it to your RSS feed. I have no idea if anyone has ever done that, ever.

Trivia: The network television news pool for the coverage of Apollo 11 cost $750,000 and used 150 people at Cape Kennedy alone. Source: This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age, William E Burrows.

Currently Reading: After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation, Giles MacDonogh.

Comments

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

I'm starting to get the idea you two like to go outside and have fun! ;D

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Oh, now, yes, we quite like doing many things. It's a bit surprising considering how much we also like just sitting where we are and not doing stuff.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

I'm impressed that the artist was well aware the tail had to actually go somewhere in the first image, although I'm not entirely convinced that'd be terribly comfortable.

I do like the idea of a steeplechase ride! I presume it couldn't go all that fast, being a sort of monorail design?

The weather reminds me of one time at Alton Towers, where I realised that even if it's only drizzle, it will sting when you're travelling at 40mph on a pirate boat's downswing. Not that we stopped enjoying it. ^_^

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

The steeplechase didn't go fast at all, no. The actual roller-coaster steeplechases are a bit faster, but they have gravity to assist.

I don't have any real roller coaster experiences in the rain, although bunny_hugger did get one ride on a coaster just as the storm got started and it was a mixed experience. An awesome one, though.

[rapidtrabbit.livejournal.com]

Those flat horse rides on a rail are very common in European amusement parks but practically non-existant here in the USA, I'll bet because of liability concerns and stupid people. The two Legolands here at FL and CA have that ride with blocky Lego horses but only kids are allowed.

The one other ride like that here is "Moose On The Loose" at Darien Lake NY. Not horses but at least they do let all ages ride.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I'm curious what insurance companies actually think of horse-mounting rides. Granted the way parks try to run their carousels as slowly as possible without literally going backwards (and I believe Dorney Park is considering that for next year) suggests they expect people falling off and getting badly hurt. But I don't know that there's evidence that speed has much to do with rate or severity of injuries.

And for a horse-on-a-rail ride you'd think the seat belt that's enough for a 2 rpm carousel would satisfy paranoid safety concerns.